Wednesday, January 25, 2012

This little beauty was sitting neglected in the basement of an estate sale a couple years ago. It was filthy and kinda hidden under a table and didn't really look like much but something about the stance...the little scamp had me at hello!

It's a Webcor Allegro and it don't play no MP3s and it ain't got no I-pod dock. There's no

WiFi or Bluetooth or digital anything. It don't even got an RCA output. Too bad, I'd love to

plug it into my PC to record my LPs using those wonderful tubes! The tiny and very old

speaker just couldn't be doing justice to the sound of vintage vinyl but it does indeed work

and it's fun to play.

I'm not sure if the finish would be called simply Blonde or Limed Oak. I have a Limed Oak

dining set that this highly resembles. Check out that speaker cover. That's not speaker cloth.

It's actually a woven caning. Nice. Doesn't the shape of the unit have a Jetsons look to it?

Kinda makes ya wanna throw on some Miles Davis and have a record listening party, right?

Even the Webcor Allegro logo inside the lid has a Googie look to it. This a really mod unit man

even though the record player is so old school. It has 33, 45 and even the archaic 78 LP

speeds. The two potentiometers that control the volume and tone on the outside front of the

player had knobs that were not in such good condition so I replaced them with light knobs

from the hardware store. I still have the originals though...for reference, just in case I one

Not to be bummer Bopfish but, if you love your records you will keep them well away from this record player. I worked at a record store for 11 years and a radio station for 5, we would refer to a record player like this as a "grinder". Even with a new needle that tone arm will either skate across the record causing scratches or, if you weigh it down with pennies, dig into the grooves and badly degrade the quality for future re-playing. They sure do look cool, but it's death for records.